An understated but profound and even enigmatic novel.
An archivist remembers his only love while his life’s work falls apart.
In Swiss writer Stamm’s latest novel to be translated into English, an unnamed narrator painstakingly (and obsessively) keeps an archive that, he tells us, “not only points to the world, it is a picture of the world and a world in and of its own. And,” he goes on, “unlike the world, it has an order, where everything has its appointed place, and can with a little practice be quickly found.” Perhaps because the world has grown so unpredictable, our narrator has gradually stopped going out into it, aside from occasional forays for groceries or walks. He stays at home—the home he grew up in—to work on his archive and dwell on his memories. Most of these concern his long-gone love for a girl, Franziska, he knew in his youth, who eventually became a pop star and lost touch. Once upon a time, our narrator admitted to Franziska that he loved her but, alas, his love was not returned. Stamm’s novel is a deceptively quiet meditation on how we live, the choices we make, and the categories that define our world. From the beginning, we know that the narrator has been fired from his now-obsolete job. Still, he carries on his work: “When something is fitted into the hierarchy of subjects,” he insists, “it becomes understandable and governable. If everything is equal, the way it is in the Internet, then nothing has any value.” It’s a gorgeous novel, constructed with subtlety and nuance and the sort of prose that seems to simply disappear as you read, like footsteps on a beach.
An understated but profound and even enigmatic novel.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781635422757
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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